


Down the Hall

by celticvampriss



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, F/M, Single Parent Levi, rivetra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3996523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celticvampriss/pseuds/celticvampriss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petra finds herself drawn to the apartment down the hall by a baby's cries and what she finds may lead to more than she ever could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Hall

**Author's Note:**

> (sorry for a bit of a lame summary) For the prompt: Nanny/Single Parent AU. Levi is the single parent. Petra is a neighbor on his floor. Bit of angstiness, but overall not too bad. Expect swearing.

The crying echoed and bounced down the long hallway.  Wailing so loud that Petra had to check to be sure the source wasn’t closer than she had thought, but a look up and down the length of her floor told her that she was alone out there.  Another burst of wails and then a torrent of curses made her nearly drop her box, spilling the remnants of her career like a cascade of failure over the floor.

“For heaven’s sake.”  She muttered, shoving the key into her door and working it open with her shoulder.  She set down her box filled with three years of a life she’d thought had been going pretty well and was about to shut the noise behind her.  Seeking out drama was the last thing she needed or wanted to deal with just then.  But she didn’t.  She couldn’t.  The cries, while grating on her very last nerve, also tugged on her heart.  Like a pull she couldn’t ignore.  So she huffed very loudly and snatched up her keys.

“Hello?”  She eased her door closed, looking further down the hallway.  She walked with her head craned toward the doors.  Rising up through the numbers until she found the one containing the bedlam.  She thought it would be difficult, but there was a door at the very end left wide open and it very obviously contained the screams.

What followed next was a round of barely distinguishable pleading, someone begging for their very life, and she stepped up to the doorway cautiously.

“Hello?”

Petra tapped her knuckles against the frame, but it was obvious that no one could possibly hear it.  Just inside, like her own apartment, was the kitchen and off that a living room.  She couldn’t see far into the place, only the neatly stacked cupboard of dishes, key rack with keys set in place and labeled, and a few coats on pegs all spaced and clean and over top the obvious meticulous organization was mess.  Just mess.  Bottles toppled over on a table.  Formula powder dusting the counter and floor with leftover hand-prints like an infant murder scene.  Petra hugged her arms into her chest.

“Hello?  Please answer me.”  She whispered that last part as she took one careful step over the other, skirting the abandoned car seat and blankets and toys.  The toys.  They were strewn about the place like someone had thrown a bomb into a toy box.  “Please don’t be a murderer.  Or crazy.”  Petra followed the cries, adding only in her head, ‘please be alright.’

She found the small hallway that would lead to a bathroom and a bedroom, the master being that last door at the very end.  The cries were coming from that second bedroom and she tip-toed to it, the cries growing in volume like sirens call to guide her to disaster.  Because this was possibly a very bad idea.

When she gathered up her courage and peeked into the room she needed a moment to figure out what she was looking at.  The room was messier than the rest of the apartment, baby things fell in places like a hurricane wind had tossed the lot of it around and dumped it from mid-air.  The furniture was elegant with decorations on the walls that suggested the arrival of a newborn might once have been a source of happiness.  And sitting on the floor amidst the chaos, with head slumped down so that she could not see a face, with a baby cradled in his arms and a bottle in a free hand and formula dripping from the ends of his hair, was a man.

Petra’s heart shattered.  “Oh my God.”

The man jumped suddenly.  Alert.  His eyes fell over her with all the calm of a caged feral animal and he pulled the infant away from her. 

“Who the fuck are you?”  He looked around.  “What are you doing in my apartment?”

Petra held out her hands in a show of faith.  The baby cried on, it’s vigor renewed once it was jarred from it’s position.  “Your door was open.  I heard the crying.”  She met his wild gaze and held it.  “I’m here to help.”

She thought for a moment she saw tears glisten against the severe grey in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant.  He looked completely wrecked.  Like he hadn’t slept in weeks while also running a marathon.  He had dropped the bottle in his panic at her presence and now held up his free hand, pressing the heel of it into his forehead.

His hands shook.

Petra took this as a sign to continue.  She stepped further into the nursery, a toy squeaked under her foot, but she continued without stopping.  “You…you look terrible.”  She kept her voice soft, calming.  The man looked up at her suddenly and she wasn’t sure if he was assessing her or annoyed with her.  “May…may I hold, um,” she looked around and saw the flash of a knitted pink hospital cap in her peripheral, “her?”

He didn’t answer, only stared at her.

“I promise I’m only here to help.  Please.”  She held out her arms.

In a second he seemed to decide something, because he allowed her to take his daughter from his arms.  The weight left him and he sank backward, needing the wall to steady himself.

“She won’t…”  He grabbed a fistful of his hair as Petra shushed and bounced the baby in her arms.  “She won’t eat.  She won’t stop.  She…”  He swallowed.

“It’s okay.  It’s okay.”  Petra said, to him not the baby.  He seemed to need it just as much.  Petra went and picked up the bottle.  The temperature seemed alright, she was hardly an expert, and she found a chair to sit down.  As she attempted to ease the bottle into the baby’s wailing mouth she started humming.

“Shh.  Shh.  It’s alright, sweetheart.  You’re just fine.”  Petra started to sing softly, trying a different angle and gently teased the baby’s palette until she was starting to suck between cries and then finally stopping all together.

The father watched this with awe and when she looked up again, a happy triumphant smile on her face, she suddenly felt awkward. 

“Um.  I’m okay for right now.  Why don’t you go and get yourself cleaned up?  That formula in your hair is going to start to smell.”  She looked away because holding his gaze made her heart skip. 

“What’s your name?”  He asked, voice hoarse.

“Petra.  What about you?”

“Levi.”

“And her?”  Petra asked, with a hint of affection.

“Her…her name’s Isabel.”  He replied slowly.

“That’s very pretty.  And you’re very pretty, Isabel.”  Petra said, and once again when she looked up she had to look away from the intensity of his stare.  She knew she was blushing now.

“Go take care of yourself.  We’ll be right here when you get back.  I promise.”  He still hesitated, but eventually listened.  Petra took care of Isabel while he was gone.  The crying flared up briefly, but another song soothed her again and soon exhaustion was taking over.  By the time he returned, hair towel dried and a change of clothes, Isabel was asleep in Petra’s arms.

She held up her finger to her lips as a signal and he nodded in understanding.  “I don’t want to put her down.”  She whispered.  “She might start up again.  She’s a very fitful sleeper.”

He laughed in the broken way of a man with no humor left inside him.  “Yeah.  I know.”

They slipped into silence and Petra knew she should just let it carry for the sake of the baby, but she didn’t.  “Are you alone with her?”

He started at the question and Petra grimaced.  “Sorry.  It’s not my place to ask.”

“No.  It’s…her mother’s gone.”  He said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.”  He said harshly, with a flash of anger that convinced Petra it wasn’t death that had separated mother from daughter.

“She’s very spirited.”  Petra said, by way of keeping the awkwardness from the room.

“Yeah.”  He said, lost in some thought.

“Uh, Levi, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for just walking into your house like that.  I know I scared you, but I could hear you all the way to my apartment and–”

“You could?”  He said.

“Uh, yes.  I think the whole floor heard.”

“Petra.”  He swallowed, voice still not quite returned.  “Petra, um, I wanted to pay you.”

“Oh, there’s no need.  I just wanted to help.”

He shook his head.  “No, that’s not.  I wanted to pay you for your services.  If you’re interested.”

She paused, staring at him with her eyes going just a bit wider.  “Levi, that’s not…I’m not that kind…”

“That’s not what I meant.”  He amended quickly, scratching at the back of his head.  “That’s not…” He took a breath.  “I mean, would you be interested in helping with her and I’ll pay you.”

“What…like a nanny?”

“I don’t care what you call it.  I just can’t do this.”  He seemed to break a bit at that last sentence, tapering off and staring at her shoes.

“Well.”  She began, walking closer to him and smiling.  “You are in luck, actually.  As fate would have it, I am currently in need of a source of income.”

“I will pay you whatever you want.”  He said, completely serious.

She laughed, careful to keep it quiet.  Petra looked down at Isabel and couldn’t help the sense that something larger had brought her to Levi’s apartment.  She didn’t know if she believed in fate, really, but when she looked from father to daughter she couldn’t ignore the way it registered in her chest, the familiar way it all seemed to her even after only a few hours.  Whatever happened now, Petra was more than ready to find out.


End file.
